Archive for November, 2009

She sat on the beach sand like a soft painting, that long California blonde hair blowing gently in warm summer wind.

Maybe he misses her when she’s out of town or just in the other room, tries to listen to Iggy Pop or have a true vision of Picasso with a cold beer, but it doesn’t work because he has gone somewhere impossible with her, can’t drink enough to blur the image of her in that red bikini with that glass of red wine.

Or the fine shimmer of darkness in her chocolate eyes.

They drank in an alley once, in Los Angeles, as alley cats strolled fences, hanging onto sanity, broke, young, on the run and always cool west coast jazz, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Herb Alpert, a soundtrack, a stillness…

Facing each other and toughing out the metamorphosis of evolving. Would she get upset if I ripped a butterfly in half or squeezed a kitten until it exploded?

She would.

But sometimes we don’t know our own strength when touching something delicate and beautiful until we destroy it.

There’s a sex theater next door
with little flickering lights around
the windows and a bouncer
pacing out front. In the alleyway,
just a little further down, I can see
them – two glass doors, one
with a thick red curtain
drawn. In the other, a beautiful
woman straddling a chair.
She’s smoking a cigarette, skillfully
dazzling the droll beasts
of the evening, who move past
with their umbrellas. Englishmen,
Turks, Americans, the lonely,
the debauched. I watch them all
go by from this table by the
window, as the church bells toll
in the tower at the foot
of the street; they toll out of sadness,
anger, remorse. They toll
and they keep tolling when
suddenly the curtain pulls back
and a man creeps through
the door. He lowers his head and scurries
off into the rainy evening.
A few minutes later, she appears
in his place. Barely legal, blond,
svelte; she touches her velvety
thighs belly lips sticks her fingers
in her mouth and somehow
you are led to believe
her next
will also be her first.

Alvin Stone is headed home. Because of his flimsy slippers, he’s finding it hard to step in time with the music. It’s getting late. The warmth has left the sun, and he wants to reach home before nightfall. “This time Eve, my dear,” he promises, “I’ll take my pills. I’ll keep quiet. I swear—this time I’ll be good.” Alvin halts. His pulse quickens. Just ahead—his house.

…Patients in the ward turn toward the old man as he stops wandering the walls and cries out her name. They watch mesmerized as he runs his right hand up and down his gown pulling frantically at a non-existent pocket—searching for his house key.

Rusty Truck: Do you have a particular place or routine where you write best?

Christopher Robin: Whenever I travel, which is often, I take a stack of letters and poetry notes with me, get a motel room or a campground and get more writing and reading done than at home. Vegas is great for poetry. There’s something about writing and gambling that I really love.

Todd Moore: Anywhere in the world is fine as long as the lines are coming.

William Taylor Jr. I tend to get most of my ideas and notes that eventually become poems from just walking around the city and hanging out. The bars, the streets, whatever. I generally hammer it all together at my desk at home.Continue reading →

A guy younger than me
in a red stocking hat
comes out of the cold and
sits on the couch in the coffee shop.
His legs are tightly crossed,
so are his arms
his chin to his chest-
a cold bird high
in a tree with no leaves.
His mouth hangs open
from his pale face
thin rimmed glasses holding back eyes
that fixate on the wooden floor
slowly drifting in and out of consciousness.
A plastic grocery bag
full of his belongings sits next to him.
People go on around him
like he has always been there.

I always wanted to be an artist
so I could paint life like this.
My hand never steady enough
to trace man’s inner conflict.
I always wanted to be able to sing
so people would listen.
I wanted to be God
but I’m scared of water.
I want to buy this guy a cup of coffee
and get his story
but I don’t
I just type and look
over at him
and every once in awhile
he looks at me and wonders
what my
problem is.